Latest / Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott / It's The Department of Corrections, Not Prisons

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It's The Department of Corrections, Not Prisons · Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott

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Good morning and welcome. It is the third hour show five eighty six of
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The Morning Show with Preston Scott Grant Allen running the program, and of course
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here in Studio one B, I am sequestered, but I am joined by
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the Secretary of Corrections for the State of Florida, Ricky Dixon. Good to
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have you back, sir. How are you just good to be here?
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Preston doing well? Last time we talked, we covered a lot of ground,
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and I think a lot of people had a transformative kind of experience because
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I think in the last segment when I talked about the fact that a lot
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of people hear Secretary of Corrections and they think prisons, but it's correction.
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Am I far off in that distinction. There's a difference, not at all.
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I say that a lot. Actually, when we talk to our staff,
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Let's remember we're not the Department of Prisons or the Department of Corrections.
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We have a purpose and that corrections mission is very much part of what we
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do. It can't be secondary to everything else. It's embedded in our very
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being in existence as a corrections agency. As I talk about twenty thousand plus
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returning citizens every year in the state and the importance of addressing that. Is
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that something that's on the radar of the correctional system nationally, And if so,
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how many states are giving it focus as you are here in Florida.
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I think most are. I think it's a conversation that I've seen evolve over
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the last you know, at least four or five years, decades really now
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to different extents in different states. There's different focus, both in terms of
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narratives and resources applied to its success. I think a lot of states though,
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are probably like we were. We had some you know, if I
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go back several years, we had some really good programs that we were proud
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of. But if you impact twenty five people in a population of eighty thousand,
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you know, you know what are you doing? You've got to focus
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on programs you can scale up and have the greatest impact with the greatest number
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of people, and tie those programs to real jobs. And so that level
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of sophistication in the past probably in a lot of other states, and in
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Florida as well, I'm not sure was there. We had various programs we'd
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offer, but I think we're moving in a direction with the support of the
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Florida Foundation for Correctional Excellence, and just a real shout out to you and
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those other board members that are on that board. I appreciate the intellectual level
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and the business experience and that they bring. But we're trying to, you
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know, take our you know, level of operation to a new level in
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terms of really identifying the program needs relative to the job market today, relative
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to the locations geographic locations these individuals are going to and to make ours them
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work to complement those employment needs and instead of work against it. SOT A
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lot in that area is being done. Let's talk about the progress made.
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Last time we talked, legislative session was rolling along the last House Senate,
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the Governor. Of course, it seemed as though it was a good productive
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session for corrections. Break that down, was it? It absolutely was,
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And I can tell you with all honesty, I'm not sure I'd be doing
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this right now, but we're not. For Governor de Santus and his support
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and understanding of the needs of corrections. First of all, you and you
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hear him say this all the time, and I appreciate it so much as
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a taxpayer and a citizen of Florida. There's a there's a recognition that that
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Florida has to be safe to have tourists want to come here, to have
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people want to move here and leave. That's or live. That's at the
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you know, the very the root of that being successful for Florida, for
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our state. And I think in the past with various leaders, there's not
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necessarily there's always been that appreciation of law enforcement and their role and the judiciary,
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but the back end of this criminal justice system is directions. We're the
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receiving back end of that system, and the corrections have to be supported for
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us to be successful with all those things for public safety in Florida, not
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only and I think here's the missing link. And I think we're doing better
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at educating folks and speaking about it more. But it's not just that they're
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safe while they're in our custody, because some are there for two years and
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some are there for life. But as you mentioned, over twenty thousand a
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year getting out. That's a staggering number. Yeah, over eighty percent of
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those in our population right now, we'll be back in the community one day.
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So recognizing that whether you do it, you know, for the sake
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of the individual's second chance, or not. Let's do it for public safety,
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because if they come back, there is a victim most often tied to
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their return to prison. We started counting his shows at the beginning because we
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weren't really quite sure how long he'd last. Yeah, now it just turned
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into a thing. Welcome to the Morning Show with Preston Scott twenty two years
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later. Yeah, I guess you could call it a thing. Eleven minutes
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past the hour of the Morning Show. I'm Preston and with US Secretary of
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Corrections Ricky Dixon. Let's quantify then versus now, some of the things that
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have happened internally with corrections and some of the opportunities you've had to improve things
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for workers. To begin with, well, I I enjoyed speaking with you
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about a year ago, and we were kind of in the recovery mode then,
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and we've advanced so much in just a year from from where we were
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then. A credit to again the governor, in the House and Senate leadership.
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So specifically as it relates to legislative wins last year, the one of
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the most significant areas of improvement was salaries. You know, we went from
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if I look back three or four years, staff were around thirty three thousand
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dollars a year and up to almost fifty now, you know, close to
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that. So that's made a remarkable improvement at our ability to recruit and retain
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sure staff. And I can tell you and we'll get into other things related
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to re entry, I know later in the show, but it's kind of
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like Maslow's hierarchy of needs. It's hard to concentrate on self actualization if you're
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looking for food and water, And that was kind of us. We were
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trying to do a good job with education, programming, all these other areas
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that are important, but we were, you know, dying on the vine
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in terms of staffing, and you know, especially following COVID and some of
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the impacts that this profession and others were having in general. So our recovery
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in that area is first and foremost important to be successful in every other area.
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So going so getting that those significant pay increases, becoming competitive with other
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law enforcement agencies and other employers in general in the various areas of the state.
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Well on our way to recovery. There was a time we had about
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six thousand vacancies. We're down to just over two thousand right now. So
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if got down fast, and some of that was due to we forfeited some
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positions due to the population draw but most of that is recovery, and that
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again is a credit to our lawmakers recognizing the need to take action in that
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area and restore the system, and their good work is paying huge dividends for
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us. The vastness I think people don't fully understand. You talked about the
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sheer numbers of incarcerated people that's spread upon across how many facilities, Well it's
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forty nine prisons, but under those prisons runder those wardens's various units. So
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we have about one hundred and forty five various fence THENT areas across Florida,
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but forty nine wardens leading forty nine complexes. And so in addition to the
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you know, I mentioned the the pay, but the large part of that
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success last year in the legislature too was two hundred and fifteen educators in our
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system. Our education buildings have been sitting empty for years, and with that
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additive, we're going to fill every education, every vocational building in Florida.
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And just again so much credit to the House and Senate leadership. Specifically,
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I had the first conversation, the first time I ever talked to President of
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Pasadoma. She expressed an interest in improving in education, asked a lot of
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questions and sure delivered on them on everything that she mentioned, with support from
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the House and of course the governor's approval. That two hundred and fifteen positions
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is a game changer. We celebrated twenty positions we received about three years ago
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and we couldn't fill them. We filled about five because the salary, so
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not only giving us or adding two hundred and fifteen teachers to the system,
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but taking the pay up to around fifty thousand a year so we could be
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competitive of local school districts. We've already hired about one hundred and seventy of
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those two hundred and fifteen positions in this short period of time. So we're
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well on our way to you know, my transformation and thinking Secretary Dixon came
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from this. Well, there's the way that things ought to be, but
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then there's the way that things are. And I think for many people listening
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today getting to that reality nugget that there are going to be this many people
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becoming citizens, returning to communities. This is a reality. Whatever you think
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things ought to be. This is a reality. Now what are we going
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to do about it? To me is that the fundamental question that corrections is
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charged with answering it really is. And again these statistics are staggering. And
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I get another one that shocks me always is realizing that about six to seven
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thousand individuals come to us a year with less than a year to serve.
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So the turnaround that happens through our system and the turn is amazing. Let's
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talk about one facility where you have kind of brought a lot of your ideas
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on staffing and support and gathering inmates of a certain time hype in one spot.
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What did you What have you learned? What can you quantify from doing
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things a little differently? We learned so much. This was kind of born
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out of desperation several years ago, probably going back five or six years ago,
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when we didn't really see any help in sight in terms of some of
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the resources that have come our way in recent years, and we just realized
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we need to find a way to manage the population differently, to use incentives
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to get the cooperative behavior that we were seeking. And so what we started
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doing was in and it's different than other states. A lot of states solely
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categorize on escape risk, violence risk, and things like that, and we
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still do that too, but we put a a very remarkable impact on their
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behavior. So we focus a lot on their behavior, and we you know,
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I brag a lot about our incentivized prisons. We're up to about eight
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of those now, where we take individuals who have gone two years without a
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discipline air report and we put them with like minded individuals that want to focus
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on education and self better, get better. Right. So that has worked
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remarkably well on the side of the house. But what will happen if you
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do that is you'll you'll leave behind in these other prisons a more dangerous individual.
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And so we the other the counterbalance to the incentivized was we determined that
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we were going to remove those that distract others from doing well, those that
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create violence, those that kind of call the shots, so to speak,
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and we were going to identify them and put them in a location altogether.
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Now, on the surface, some would say, oh boy, you're putting
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you know, gasoline and fire in the same spot, and I had those
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thoughts myself. We talked about this. We had a lot of conversations about
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how dangerous is this to take because what we're essentially doing is taking the most
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dangerous in mates in Florida and putting them together in one prison, and that
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that sounds pretty dangerous, and it would be if we didn't do what we
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did at the time and add all the necessary resources to keep it safe.
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Okay, So with limited resources, we really beefed up our staffing in that
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prison, we beefed up our programming, and we keep and also our security
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mechanisms are fencing, our metal detectors. So we hardened that prison for a
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hardened individual. And the message basically is if you get selected to go here,
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you're going to be there for a long time, at least a year
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to two years, maybe more, until you cooperate with the programming and not
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just any programming, programming targeted to their needs anger management, those type of
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needs that aren't met. And those individuals selected to be there, we keep
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them busy from the time they wake up to the time they go to bed.
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They're searched everywhere they go, they walk in straight lines. It's a
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very structured facility. Here's the remarkable thing that happened with that, with this
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initiative is now we've got what should be the most dangerous prison in Florida operating
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in the most safe way with the least amount of violence, almost compared to
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our other prison. So what we prove to ourselves and others is resources matter.
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If you appropriately staff a prison offering the deterrence needed to properly supervise and
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watch all the areas, and if you appropriate program a prison and keep the
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population busy all day long, you have remarkable results in terms of programming.
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We also applied to a program called seven Habits and others there as well,
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where we've received seeing almost a seventy five percent reduction in discipline aary reports,
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wow, and things like that. So we're seeing good results from the population
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management strategies that our leadership have worked so intently on for the last several years.
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And the nice thing about this is this isn't theory. You're able to
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quantify results and measure it absolutely how much of that impacts what you're trying to
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do now moving forward again, it was you know, we started this back
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at a time and we thought that would be the only solution in sight.
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So now that we have the two hundred and fifteen additional teachers. All the
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good work that FFC is doing, it complements so well and works, you
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know, so well to support and reinforce all of the rehabilitative and re entry
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initiatives we had. Another initiative we're doing is as we recognize the importance of
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moving individuals closer to home prior to release, and logistically that's tough in Florida,
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knowing that sixty percent of the population comes from the South, sixty percent
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of the prisons in the North, so there's some mathematical issues there that work
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against us. But we are thinking through that and being strategic in the way
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we create wings and dorms to the extent we can, and this is a
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work in progress, get those individuals back closer to home within a year of
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release. Where now our volunteer efforts can be with more intent and not just
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individuals coming in to help mentor others, but mentor others that are getting out
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in their area and their local areas make a difference in a positive way improve
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the lives of others. That's what this show is about, and this is
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the President's Scott Show. We are talking about the Department of Corrections with Secretary
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Ricky Dixon on The Morning Show with Preston Scott. We're in the midst of
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the legislative session, lawmakers making decisions. Budgetary conferences are going to be beginning
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soon. We talked about success and what that looks like, and sometimes it
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is defined by you need to have resources in personnel, in staffing, in
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programming, and that comes down to tax payer money. What are the things
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that will keep the trajectory moving in the direction that you now know works sure
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you know, first of all, the Governor's recommendations were amazing this year in
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support of the things that we need. Obviously continue with the pay for the
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correction lossers. We do have a five thousand dollars additive at the fifteen of
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our hard to feel facilities that we're trying to sustain, So that's important as
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it relates to reducing inmate idleness and the teachers. I don't really have a
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request there related to people because of the good work that was done last year,
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but I need to stand them up now and make them successful with it.
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Needs information technology, improving our computer systems not just for the sake of
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education, but hardware, infrastructure and those type of things. So we have
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a significant information technology request this year in as it relates to infrastructure. Our
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big focus this year is on physical plant needs. We need our buildings from
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interiors to the envelopes of the buildings. How old are we talking Some of
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these buildings are that are in need anywhere from nineteen thirteen to today, and
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you know periods of time a lot of these prisons have had additional buildings built,
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So it's a hodgepodge of different you know, different ages or I see
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periods when these buildings were built. Okay, So the plant needs exist statewide.
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They do, and there's a there was you know, we're at that
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stage of the legislative session where you get anxious and you start seeing different things
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on paper and different branches of government. But it looks pretty good right now,
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so I know they've got to get together and work out where we land.
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Probably the largest dollar items on the board right now are those related to
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the physical plant and for for not just the workers, but for the inmates.
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The living conditions are important. The conditions impact behavior for sure. Sure.
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We have you can see that now in our in our prisons with like
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individuals in terms of custody levels and different types of living environments and we just
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have better success in those those those buildings that are that are performing better.
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So we've got a lot of work to do there and there's a recognition of
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that. And I give again, I don't want to name names, I'll
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leave people out, but the responsiveness from our senators and many of our representatives
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that have actually spent a lot of time in our prisons seeing some of these
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issues. You just can't understand it on a spreadsheet or hearing me talk about
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it or on a phone call. You've got to be there and see it.
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And they have done a remarkable job coming out and putting eyes on it.
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And again, we have a lot of champions that are working with us
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in that area. Do you have an idea how many lawmakers, like a
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percentage wise of the House and the Senate have actually been to some of the
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facilities. I wouldn't say it's fifty percent, but you know, probably not
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that high. But those that do are faithful, A lot of them are.
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And let me mention this too, if I can community corrections resources this
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year as it relates to the budget, often the prison side gets a lot
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more focused, but they do such a remarkable job first of all, helping
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us determine who needs to be in prison and who does not, either those
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that are post released, that have been in prison and get out those that
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haven't been to prison yet. And for everyone they're successful with. I promise
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you per diem on community corrections is much less than per diem inside of our
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prison. But there's a safety aspect too, and their ability to identify who
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needs to go and to work with the judiciary to make those decisions are they're
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kind of some unsung heroes as well of our system and do a remarkable job.
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So we're asking this year for radios for them so we can communicate and
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know they're safe, firearms for them, considering the neighborhoods that go in this
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day in time, uniforms for them, So a big lift in the community
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correction side. And they've got their champions as well in the House and Senate
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that have really paid attention to their needs. I think it's important. My
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challenge to any lawmaker and the staff the aids that are listening out there is
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do what I've done. Visit facilities, see for yourself, form your own
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opinions. Like the Secretary said, spreadsheets don't get it done. This is
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important Again, these people are coming back to these communities and these community these
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facilities are hubs in those communities for workers, for staffing, and so that's
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my challenge to you. We listen just to hear what he's going to say.
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Next The Morning Show with Preston Scott on News Radio one hundred point seven
19:52
WFLA forty one minutes past the hour. It's not for the faint of heart,
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you know. It's kind of like growing old. Growing old is not
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for sissies, you know, and this line of work is not for the
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faint of heart. Corrections Correction Secretary Ricky Dixon with us in studio this morning
20:14
on the Morning Show with Preston Scott. You've got to be really happy and
20:18
proud of the staff and how they've really adjusted to a vision that is broader
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than what they might have had previously. Very very proud of the staff.
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Can't do it without them, and they are. They do amazing work every
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day in a very very difficult environment. We ask a lot of them,
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especially with some of the staff shortages that we've had, but again, retention
20:37
is reflecting that they're happier, and we focused a lot on you know,
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money is a short term motivator. It's very important, and they have to
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have competitive salaries, but more importantly, they're equally as important. You have
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to enjoy where you work and believe you you're there for a purpose and have
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a reason to do what you do. And so I think our work environments
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have improved significantly in the last year or two. And in the last segment
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talking about the physical plan talking about uniforms that the tools needed to be successful.
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As you mentioned, it's not all just cash. Cash does end up
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buying those improvements and buying those needed things. Yeah. Correct, We're very
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fortunate. As you mentioned the tools necessary from X ray machines to metal detectors.
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We've had a lot of success lately in getting those things, but setting
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the conditions as I really credit our leadership for focusing on the family atmosphere,
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morale, let's bread of core, doing those things that make the shifts and
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the teams feel like family and want to be there every day. I think
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we kind of lost sight of that along the way several years back, and
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we've brought a lot of those things back. Employee appreciation days, things like
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that, large events across the state where we bring legislators out to stand and
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thank them and recognize them, and just doing a lot of things and keeping
21:48
it churning and doing things differently to make sure the staff know they're important.
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I was going to ask, how do you vision cast, like, for
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example, what does the next year look like? When you're in an in
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history that's perpetual, you know. I mean, yeah, there's a calendar,
22:03
and yeah there's a legislative session, but it never stops. In your
22:07
world effort, it doesn't. But I think thanks to the legislature and the
22:10
governor, they're taking our excuses away. It's been really easy for the department
22:14
in the past to point figures and say, well, oh is me.
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We don't have the resources we need, and it's why we did some of
22:19
the population management strategies I mentioned earlier. But we have been with their help,
22:26
so successful in the last few years. We're not going to have that
22:27
excuse much longer. So we're so vision casting. We're at a point where
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we've got to tie all these ends together. We're doing so many great things
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in so many silos right now, and we've got to just you know,
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really start tying these pieces together. When I mentioned that I think about the
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Florida Foundation for Correctional Excellence, I think about PRIDE, our Prison industry program,
22:48
I think about our educational efforts, our career and technical efforts, and
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I just want to make sure that we're all did all these different sections doing
22:56
good work, or the work's complementary to each other, and we're not competing
23:00
for different, very different population sets. And one thing I want to really
23:03
work on is we're working right now as we speak on one of the most
23:07
robust strategic plans we've ever developed, centered around programming. And some things we
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don't know right now that we should know is our target populations for various needs,
23:18
substance abuse, ged career and technical, welding programs, masonry programs,
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and so what we're trying to do because it's not fair to say, well,
23:26
you've only got two thousand seats in a certain area and you've got eighty
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thousand or eighty five thousand inmates in your system. All of those eighty five
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thousand inmates may not need that specific program. So we're laying out metrics relative
23:40
to all of the needs in our system. We do a real good job
23:45
of risky needs assessment, determining what you need when you come to prison.
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In the past, we haven't done a good job of delivering or meeting that
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need, so we're kind of parsing that out now and making sure that we
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have good metrics to ensure that these staff re sources we have or applied in
24:00
the right areas so if we need to shift from education over to career and
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technical or career and technical to substance use and identify any shortcomings we have as
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well. So that is a large part of what we're working on right now
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in you know, in conjunction with the other areas I mentioned with getting inmates
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closure to home, to the right places to meet these program needs. As
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I said, it never ever stops, never ends, and trying to keep
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violence down in the meantime as well. Yeah, and oh by the way,
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yeah right, Thanks so much for making time. Glad to be here.
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You know that the studios are up in any time you want. Appreciate
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you. Thanks. Ricky Dixon is the Secretary of Corrections for the State of
24:41
Florida. Our guest, and yes, this will be a conversations podcast on
24:45
the Morning Show with Preston Scott